1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a heat sink assembly, and more particularly to a heat sink assembly which has at least one leg extending outward and having a stepped head formed on a free end thereof. A channel is defined in the stepped head for the purpose of receiving electrical wires of a fan, such that the electrical wires are protected from damage and are therefore securely fixed therein.
2. Description of Related Art
Heat transfer is an important factor to performance of integrated circuits. Although a wide variety of cooling devices have been provided before, the results have not been satisfactory in all aspects. For example, the U.S. Pat. No. 5,309,983 issued to Bailey on May, 10, 1994 discloses a heat dissipating device comprising a motorized fan assembly which occupies a relatively large volume and thus cannot be used in portable computers. U.S Pat. No. 5,582,506 discusses a fan device for an integrated circuit, which avoids accumulation of dust and the like. The fan device, as shown in FIGS. 5 and 6 generally comprises a plate (1) with fins; a fan (2); and a board member (3) securely mounted to the plate (1) and including a hole (30) defined in the central portion thereof, a disk-like support member (32) provided in the hole (30), and a plurality of legs (31) extending downwardly from the edge of the surface defining the hole (30) and bending toward and converging with the disk-like support member (32), the support member (32) including a stud (33) extending outward and centrally defined therein a hole (not numbered) for rotatably receiving the rotor shaft (21) of the fan (2). One of the plurality of legs (31) has a groove (311) defined therein, such that an electrical wire connected to the power source and the fan (2) is able to be received in the groove (311) when assembled.
However, such a fan device still has several shortcomings. For example, a user will have to hold the electrical wire to align with the groove (311) then assemble the board member (3) provided with the fan (2) mounted thereon onto the finned plate (1), which increases the difficulty of assembly. Because alignment between the electrical wire and the groove (31) needs the user's continuous care and to keep the wire in the groove (311) also needs the user to hold the wire until the board member (3) and the finned plate (1) are assembled. Furthermore, when the fan (2) is in operation, the air flow (indicated by the arrows in FIG. 7) generated by the fan (2) and flowing outward will be restricted by the outer fins on the finned plate (1). The restricted air flow will further interfere with the air flow generated by the fan (2), such that the heat dissipation effect of the fan device is reduced.
It is an objective of the present invention to provide an improved heat sink assembly to mitigate and/or obviate the aforementioned problems.
Hereinafter, the detailed description of the preferred embodiment of the invention with reference to the accompanying drawings will be given to show the structure and function thereof. However, all the description and reference drawings are used as a descriptive purpose only, but not in a limit sense.